THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION

God’s people are opposed by the current of the times, just as their Master was. It will cost sorrow and tears if you fully follow your Master. Do you want to be heavenly? I know some that, in a measure, already are. Their speech betrays that they have been with Jesus. Mark well this fact: they are a tested people and many of them are sick. We are little of what we should be until the Lord puts us on the anvil and uses the hammer. He is doing that now with some of you. Do not complain. Let the soft whisper of this promise sustain you, “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10).

You have struggled hard, my brother, to rise out of your situation, but as often as you have striven you have fallen back to your hard lot. Do not be depressed. Live in your calling with contentment, because the Lord has said, “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”

Young person, you have been to college, and you were completing your degree. You hoped to become a well–known scholar, but your health failed. Do not be depressed, for the Lord says, “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”

Merchant, your firm is going to pieces, and you will be poor. But you have faith in God. It is the Lord’s will that you should struggle. He says, “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”

Mother, you have lost a little one, and another is sick, so you say, “I cannot bear it.” But you will bear it, for the Lord says, “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”

Are you alone? Weep no more. The Lord loves you when no one else does. He says, “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”

Some of you are like ferns. You only flourish in the damp and in the shade; too much sunlight would not be good. Your Master knows that if He put you where you would like to be, it would be deadly. Thus He writes, “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” 

Excerpted from C. H. Spurgeon’s “Beside Still Waters.”